Friday, 18 April 2014

No, this is not a blog about the song by The Band. It is about blubber.

I went to the doctor's yesterday for a prescription and a consultation. My blood pressure was down to 126/77 and she was quite pleased with that. Better still was my weight. I have lost 7 pounds in the last 23 days. I am losing at my goal rate of about 2 pounds a week.

I can do this. I can do this. I have done it before and I can do it again.

I discussed with the Doc my conversation with the brother-in-law, who is a doctor, and his suggestions on how to handle the blood pressure and sugar issues and she was in agreement with them all except she does want me to get the second diabetes test so we have a more accurate baseline to work off of and to make sure I am okay to proceed with a diet and exercise only regime.

I am struggling right now to get enough exercise in because it is cold and I hate being out in it bust as it warms up it will become easier to get walking every day and easier to walk further for better weight loss.

In the last 23 days I have walked 229.9 kilometers or pretty darn close to 10 kilometers a day.

It is raining. It is gray. It is wet. It is cold. And that is a good
thing.

After a blistering winter we are having the non spring. We have had a couple
of warmish days but nothing to write home about. There are still a couple of
patches of snow on the lawns both at my parents and at Tess' and here and there
around town although that will probably go in today's rain. In the woods there
and in all shady areas it is a different story with still a lot of snow to
go.

Just out of town a few miles there is lots and lots of snow still on the
ground and to the east in the Cariboo mountains, in Wells, Barkerville, and
Yanks Peak there is still several feet and it looks like they are in for three
more months of winter.

Believe it or not, that is a good thing.

We had a tremendous amount of snow this winter. Way, way above average
especially in the mountains. While the Fraser River is still low water is
raising in the Quesnel and Baker Creek is a raging torrent already. I can only
imagine the horror if it turns hot and stays hot.

In years like this long, slow, springs are a blessing, hot weather the enemy.
Hot weather, quick snow melts, lead to massive flooding from the headwaters all
the way to the farmland and cities of the lower mainland.

I don't like the cool but I don't like flooding either. Spring could be
interesting.

Every year we watch the rivers here in anticipation of what may happen.
Locally we haven't flooded since 1972 but every year we sit and wait. What kind
of spring will we have?

This is another watch and wait year. If it turns hot I will be taking
donations for an ark. Send money via Paypal to noah@flood.com

Thursday, 17 April 2014

World leaders and Jewish groups condemned a leaflet handed out in the
eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk in which Jews were told to "register"
with the pro-Russian militants who have taken over government office in
an attempt to make Ukraine part of Russia, according to Ukrainian and
Israeli media.

Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed
leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property
they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship
revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported
Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news
agency.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the language of the leaflets "is beyond unacceptable" and condemned whomever is responsible.

"In
the year 2014, after all of the miles traveled and all of the journey
of history, this is not just intolerable -- it's grotesque," he said.
"And any of the people who engage in these kinds of activities — from
whatever party or whatever ideology or whatever place they crawl out of —
there is no place for that."

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey
Pyatt called the leaflets "the real deal." But the man whose name
appears on the leaflets, Denis Pushilin, identified as chairman of
"Donetsk's temporary government," said he was not responsible.

Pushilin,
who is a leader of the pro-Russian movement in Donetsk, acknowledged
that leaflets were distributed under his organization's name but denied
any connection to them, Ynet reported.

Donetsk is the site of an
"anti-terrorist" operation by the Ukraine government, which has moved
military columns into the region to force out militants who are
demanding a referendum be held to join Russia.

Emanuel Shechter, in Israel, told Ynet his friends in Donetsk sent him a copy of the leaflet through social media.

"They
told me that masked men were waiting for Jewish people after the
Passover eve prayer, handed them the flier and told them to obey its
instructions," he said.

The leaflet begins, "Dear Ukraine citizens
of Jewish nationality," and states that all people of Jewish descent
over 16 years old must report to the Commissioner for Nationalities in
the Donetsk Regional Administration building and "register."

It
says the reason is because the leaders of the Jewish community of
Ukraine supported Bendery Junta, a reference to Stepan Bandera, the
leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement that fought for Ukrainian
independence at the end of World War II, "and oppose the pro-Slavic
People's Republic of Donetsk," a name adopted by the militant
leadership.

The leaflet then described which documents Jews should
provide: "ID and passport are required to register your Jewish
religion, religious documents of family members, as well as documents
establishing the rights to all real estate property that belongs to you,
including vehicles."

Consequences for non-compliance will result
in citizenship being revoked "and you will be forced outside the country
with a confiscation of property," it said. A registration fee of $50
would be required, it said.

Olga Reznikova, 32, a Jewish resident
of Donetsk, told Ynet she never experienced anti-Semitism in the city
until she saw this leaflet.

"We don't know if these notifications
were distributed by pro-Russian activists or someone else, but it's
serious that it exists," she said. "The text reminds of the fascists in
1941," she said referring to the Nazis who occupied Ukraine during World
War II.

The Jewish community in Donetsk issued in a statement
saying the leaflet distribution "smells like a provocation." Morton
Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, the oldest
pro-Israel group in the USA, said the leaflets should be seen in the
context of a rising tide of anti-Semitism across Europe.

"This is a frightening new development in the anti-Jewish movement that is gaining traction around the world," Klein said.

Michael
Salberg, director of the international affairs at the New York
City-based Anti-Defamation League, said it's unclear whether the
leaflets were issued by the pro-Russian leadership or a splinter group
operating within the pro-Russian camp.

But he said the Russian
side has used the specter of anti-Semitism in a cynical manner. Russia
and its allies in Ukraine have issued multiple stories about the the
threat posed to Jews by Ukraine's new pro-Western government in Kiev,
Salberg said.

"The message is a message to all the people that is
we're going to exert our power over you," he said. "Jews are the default
scapegoat throughout history for despots to send a message to the
general public: Don't step out of line."

I had a friend once, at least for a short while, that talked and talked and talked. He went on and on. He could damn near talk the stripes off a zebra. It was like watching the energizer bunny in action. He was a a great talker. World class. But he wasn't a conversationalist because he didn't stop talking long enough to listen to what anyone else was saying.

I thought of him this morning as I tried to log into Blogger and found it still wasn't working. You can post a blog but you cannot read anything. This has been ongoing since yesterday showing us once again how much the owners care about their users but I digress.

The fact that you cannot read anything hasn't stopped some people from posting, however. Quite a few, in fact. They log in and post their blog never noticing no one can read it. Or they notice and do not care and post anyway.

They remind me of my former friend. For these bloggers it is all about the talking, not the conversation. They talk whether anyone is listening, whether anyone can listen, or not. That, friends, is a metaphor for the troubled age we live in. Everyone is talking, demanding, screaming, but no one is listening. It has become all about getting your own message out.

You see this everywhere. On Blogster and other blog sites. On Twitter. In forums. In Amazon book reviews where hundreds chime in to write reviews of books they clearly haven't read but which they take exception to. We see it on television, in political debates, in Congress. Everywhere people are talking whether anyone hears them or not.

Oh, to be sure, they would like an audience but the hubris, the arrogance is so great the assumption becomes that someone must be listening to them because they deserve to be heard or the narcissism is so huge that they do not even notice that no one can hear them.

Welcome to the post modern age where the medium is the message and the message has no content and your truth trumps their truth so long as you never listen.

Saturday, 5 April 2014

It is snowing this morning this 5th day of April 2014. That is quite discouraging. We still have feet and inches of snow and now we are getting more.

A few days ago someone made a post of a botanical garden they had been to and I responded with a link to Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C., a world class botanical garden that Tess, Nanay and I went to on our vacation in 2011. It was beautiful beyond description.

Blog sites come and blog sites go but the bullshit goes on forever. I thought I had posted the photos before but apparently not as they were not on Picasaweb.

Tess loves botanical gardens. Me? No so much but after a few they began to grow on me. It is hard to beat beauty like this. Given that it is snowing outside all this green, sun, and warm is hard to take right now. Enjoy the photos below.